As they ducked under the impossibly low lintel of the front door, straight into the little parlour of Samson Elliott’s cottage, Atticus and Lucie Fox’s first impression was that of just having walked into a child’s kaleidoscope. Everything from the walls to the window frames, from the chairs to the table were brightly, even gaudily painted in every colour imaginable. Before Elliott’s brothers had begun their partial ransack, Lucie noted with a housekeeper’s eye, the cottage must have been meticulously clean and ordered.
“It’s so very unlike a man,” she remarked, “but I suppose after years of living in a tiny caravan, he couldn’t exist any other way.”
“This is not much bigger,” Atticus observed.
Lucie smiled in admiration as her eyes crept systematically around the little room and registered every detail.
“Who do you suppose that lady is?” she asked after a moment, “She’s very beautiful.”
Atticus followed the direction of her gaze. On a mantelshelf above the freshly blacked fireplace was a photograph. It was a small photograph contained in a delicate, silver picture frame. The subject was a tall, statuesque, young woman in traditional Gypsy dress.
Atticus started. The dress the woman was wearing was the very dress they had found in Elliott’s caravan. He was sure of it.
“It is the same dress, isn’t it?” Lucie voiced his thoughts.
Atticus nodded and picked it up. “I’m certain it’s the same dress but I really have no clue who the lady might be. She is, as you say, strikingly beautiful.”
He pondered for a moment.
“Elliott was never married as far as we know, but this lady is dressed as a Gypsy. Might she be his sister perhaps? She does have a familiar look about her.” He turned the frame over and slid back the tiny clips holding the plate.
“The date given on the back of the photograph is October 1867, so she could be around the right age.”
Lucie nodded uncertainly. “Perhaps so; that would make sense, I suppose. I wonder why Elliott would have her dresses in his caravan though. Is she dead, do you think?”
She watched as Atticus carefully replaced the photograph into the frame and then glanced around once more at the contradiction of perfect order and utter chaos.
“I can’t immediately see anything out of the ordinary here, with the obvious exception of the mess the brothers have caused.”
Atticus bit his lip. “I kick myself over that, Lucie. I was well aware of the Gypsy traditions and I knew that Elliott had two brothers. I really should have made sure we’d examined his possessions here before they arrived to destroy them.”
He shrugged.
“But I agree with you; nothing particularly excites my suspicions here. Let’s leave it to them to do with as they wish and let Samson’s spirit rest in peace. We really don’t want any more spectres returning from the Kingdom of the Dead.”